


fam·i·ly /ˈfam(ə)lē/ (noun)

by fuzzballsheltiepants



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Call It Home: An All For The Game Family Zine, Established Relationship, Family, Germany, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Minor Character Death, Nicky decides to come home for the twins, Pre-Canon, Referenced Car Accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23873413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzballsheltiepants/pseuds/fuzzballsheltiepants
Summary: Once upon a time, Nicky Hemmick was settling into his life with his boyfriend in Germany.  Once upon a time, he was recovering from growing up under the weight of his parents' expectations.  Once upon a time, he was happy.Once upon a time, thousands of miles away, Tilda Minyard drove into incoming traffic, and nothing would ever be the same.
Relationships: Nicky Hemmick & Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Nicky Hemmick & Maria Hemmick, Nicky Hemmick/Erik Klose
Comments: 7
Kudos: 121





	fam·i·ly /ˈfam(ə)lē/ (noun)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the amazing [Call It Home Zine,](https://aftgfamilyzine.tumblr.com/post/615212712353579008/we-are-pleased-to-announce-that-call-it-home-an) which is available for free download. We encourage everybody to donate what they can to the incredible charity it supports! But even if you can't donate at this time, the zine is absolutely gorgeous, with amazing art and fantastic fics all celebrating the concept of family, found or otherwise. It was a joy to participate in, and thank you again to the mods @adverbialstarlight and @gluupor for doing an incredible job!
> 
> (And thank you as always to my beta, @tntwme)

The sharp noise sliced into Nicky’s brain, pulling him from sleep. He tried to hold onto the fragments of his dream, the impressions of warmth, of sunlight glinting off water, of Erik, tanned and beautiful, but it slipped through his grasp. Instead he found himself blinking up at the ceiling in a dark room. The noise came again, harsh and unforgiving.

“Nicky. Phone.” Erik’s voice was muffled in his pillow, and when Nicky reached for the phone on his nightstand Erik rolled over and promptly started snoring.

“‘Lo?” Nicky mumbled, before realizing he hadn’t actually picked up the phone. He knocked the receiver onto the floor, groping around until he found it. “ _Ja,_ hello?”

“Nicky?”

His mom’s voice was tremulous, and he dropped the receiver again before finally managing to get a solid hold on it. “Mom?”

“Yes, it’s me, Nicky.” She sounded like she had a bad head cold, or had been crying. Nicky pushed himself up into a sitting position and rubbed his eyes.

“Are you—is everything okay?”

“No. No, it’s not.” Her voice broke, and she started crying in earnest.

Fear lanced through Nicky’s chest, waking him up fully; he pressed his knuckles to his chest and tried to find words. “Dad—”

“Your father is fine.” She took a deep, shaking breath. “It’s your Aunt Tilda. There’s been an accident.”

Nicky sagged back into his pillows. “Oh my God.” He blinked up at the ceiling. “What—is she—” There was silence on the far end. Nicky’s throat tightened, and his eyes started to burn as he realized. “Oh. I’m so sorry. What happened?”

Next to him, Erik stirred, turning to face him with a silent question in his eyes. Nicky shook his head, pulling on his socks and slipping out of bed.

“The car veered into oncoming traffic.” Her voice sounded a little steadier now. “They think there was something wrong with the steering, but it’s too soon to tell.”

“Aaron? And, um.” Nicky racked his brain for a second. “Andrew?” He tiptoed out of the room, closing the door behind him and padding down the stairs towards the kitchen. The clock on the stove read 4:08; the streetlights outside the window threw tall shadows across the floor that Nicky tiptoed over as he entered. He flicked on the light over the sink, chasing away whatever demons lurked in the darkness. If ever there was a good time for the lavender-rooibos tea Erik had insisted on getting, this was it.

“Aaron’s still being evaluated. He—he had some bruises on his face already. They told your father he probably has a concussion, and he broke his arm. Andrew was at a study group.”

It took a moment for her words to register; when they did, he froze with his hand on the kettle. “Aaron had bruises before the accident?”

“Yes, well...you haven’t met his brother, but—”

“Is that what Aaron said? That Andrew hit him?”

“No,” his mother admitted after a short pause.

Nicky closed his eyes and swallowed against the dryness in his throat. He remembered, almost like a movie he’d seen long ago, Aaron when he and Tilda had first moved to Columbia. His cousin had been so tiny; a child, still, though he would’ve been furious to be called so. Tow-headed and pale and quiet. Nicky had been too caught up in himself, in trying to survive despite the weight crushing all the air out of his lungs, to pay Aaron much attention, but his cousin had a habit of showing up uninvited at Nicky’s parents’ house.

One of those times, just before Nicky had left for Germany, he had seen a strip of purplish-blue mottling on Aaron’s arm, peeking out from the over-long sleeves of his t-shirt. He had tugged the sleeve up before Aaron could stop him, revealing three bruises. A too-rough hand, he had realized, after staring dumbly at them for a moment. Aaron had pulled away, betrayal flashing in his eyes, and before Nicky could find his voice, he was gone.

He wanted to tell his mother that he knew; he knew what Tilda was. Or—had been, he supposed. But his mother wouldn’t listen, she never did. Not to the truth, not if it hurt, not if there was a more palatable lie to be had. A silence spread, as cold and deep as the ocean between them. “What’s going to happen to them?” Nicky finally asked. “The boys, I mean.”

“I don’t know yet. Your father thinks it is our God-given duty to take them in.” Nicky could hear the hesitation in her voice, and he sagged against the counter. She had never reconciled with anything that disturbed her order, and while he knew little about Aaron and even less about Andrew, he couldn’t help but think that the twins would do more of that than she could tolerate.

“Or what, foster care?” Nicky asked.

She made a noncommittal noise. “I don’t know, we haven’t talked about it really. Maybe it would be best…but I don’t know if Tilda had any provisions in her will.”

Nicky’s heart twisted in his chest; both of these options seemed like a nightmare for two troubled boys. On paper, it seemed like his parents would be a good choice: upstanding citizens, comfortably well-off, religious…

But he knew. He knew what it was, to suffocate under the weight of expectations. To scream into the void and go unheard. Bruises were not the only marks that could be left on a person, after all, nor the most long-lasting.

He barely heard her as she said good-night, replying automatically before hanging up the phone. The kettle had finished heating long before he shook himself, grabbed a mug and a teabag, and poured the water over it. Tendrils of lavender-scented steam curled upwards, and he inhaled the familiar scent, waiting for the usual sense of comfort to steal through him.

The shuffle of socked footsteps barely registered; all he could hear, all he could see, was Aaron. Playing with Nicky’s cd collection, restlessly hopping from song to song, eyes hollow and searching; the faint whispers of hope flickering across his face as he asked to play a video game; the suppressed flinches when Nicky’s mother suggested it was time for him to go home. Three years had passed since Nicky had seen him last, and he realized he didn’t even know what he looked like anymore. Had he had a growth spurt? Did he need to shave yet?

“Are you okay?” Erik’s deep voice, hoarse from sleep, broke through Nicky’s reverie, and his fingers closed convulsively on his mug. He glanced down; the teabag was still leaching color into the lukewarm water. Suddenly he remembered the swirl of blood drifting down the bathtub drain, and he pushed the mug away.

“Nicky?”

“Sorry,” Nicky said, then cleared his throat. “My, um. My aunt died.”

“Oh,” Erik said, dropping into the chair next to him and wrapping an arm around Nicky’s shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

Nicky leaned into Erik’s warmth and let his tears fall. He didn’t know why he was crying: it wasn’t like he had been particularly close to Aunt Tilda; he had barely even known her, really. Maybe he should have, but she had never been the knowing type, always twitchy and angry and suspicious. But for some reason he couldn’t make the tears stop.

Maybe it was because she was the first person he’d known who had died. Maybe it was because he knew he wouldn’t miss her; maybe it was grief for the person he should have been, more than for Tilda herself.

Maybe it was for the boy he barely knew, and the one he had never met.

Eventually the tears tapered off, leaving him wrung-out and hollow. He realized that Erik had been murmuring into his hair as he held him, German words too low for Nicky to understand without concentrating. But it didn’t really matter. The rumble in Erik’s chest was music enough, and he closed his eyes and let it wash over him.

He wondered what it had been like, to be in that car. To be Aaron, terrified of the screeching wheels and the crunch of metal, the shattering of glass. To be Tilda, with death looming in. Had she known it? Had she reached out on instinct, to save her son? Was that why Aaron had lived and she had died?

After all, she had reached out for Aaron once before. Aaron, but not Andrew. Nicky had never understood how a parent could do that, could choose one twin and leave the other to God only knows what fate. At least now, they had each other. They didn’t have much else, but a brother—that had to count for something. Right? A brother was special, a brother was someone to hold onto. Even one who was a relative stranger, even when—even when they might be pulled apart again.

Fuck.

Nicky didn’t know how this worked. The twins were sixteen; too young to be left on their own, too old to be adopted by anyone. He pictured Aaron and his twin, a three-D printed copy with all of Aaron’s mannerisms, rattling around in that quiet precise house with its quiet precise decorations and its quiet precise people, the coldness that masqueraded as warmth leaching into the very bones of everyone who lived there.

Had they ever known anything else, either of them? Or had they both grown up in the chill of hidden shadows?

Pale rosy light was creeping in through the windows when he opened his eyes again. Erik’s voice had subsided, but he was still holding onto Nicky as if he were drowning. Nicky wanted to stay there, nestled in the safety of Erik’s arms, but the birds were beginning to call as the city woke up. Gently, he peeled himself away, rubbing the dried salt tracks off his face.

The kitchen looked different, this early in the morning. It reminded him of a painting he had once seen in a museum, one of those simple scenes that had somehow made him sad despite its beauty. The light stole across the counter, turning the peeling enamel on the sink into something stark and lovely. It felt like it belonged to another era, one far away and turned glorious by the passage of time.

“I—” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “I think I need to go back.”

Erik nodded, one hand rubbing circles into Nicky’s back. “I’m sure it will mean a lot to your parents if you are there for the funeral. Should I come too? I can take some leave from work.”

Pain lanced through Nicky’s chest, and he could barely catch his breath. He couldn’t do this; he couldn’t. After how hard he had fought for this life, for the right to exist as a whole person, for the right to be honest—he couldn’t give it up now.

He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

But he swallowed hard against the rawness in his throat and tried to keep his voice steady anyway. “I don’t just mean for the funeral.”

Erik’s hand froze, undeserved warmth percolating through Nicky’s shirt as he processed the words. “Why?” he whispered.

“The boys. My cousins.” Nicky pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, but it didn’t make the images of Aaron that were dancing behind them go away. “They—they have no one, Erik. No father, now no mother, and my parents…”

“Yeah.” Erik didn’t need Nicky to say any more.

They sat in silence as the distance between them grew. Eventually Erik got up and made coffee, and Nicky started on breakfast. They both sought the normal rhythm of their day, but everything was slightly off, a song played just out of tune. Nicky went to work, but he barely registered the familiar walk through the streets, though he knew he made it, or the banter with his coworkers, though he could hear their laughter.

Finally, finally, he was home, back in his chair in the kitchen with the dishes in the sink and Erik next to him. He should clean up, wash the dishes, wipe the crumbs off the counter. But he thought that if he did so much as shift his weight, he would break apart, shatter, the shards of him spread across the kitchen floor like glass for Erik to clean up.

“I don’t want to go,” Nicky whispered. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“I know, love,” Erik said, pressing warm lips to Nicky’s temple. “I understand, you know. It’s...complicated with family, especially your family.”

“But _you’re_ my family. More than they ever were. I don’t want to lose this because of some...some stupid _genetics_. Like some dumb blood-tie from a thousand years ago that doesn’t even make any sense anymore. Why does that even matter?” He heard his voice break, and he tried to swallow but something was choking him. Words, words were choking him, because it did matter and he hated that. “You’re my family,” he said again, his throat scraped raw.

“Yes,” Erik said slowly. “I’m your family, and you’re mine. Because we chose that. We chose it a long time ago, and we keep choosing it, every day. And don’t you think that’s more powerful than—than chance?” He pulled Nicky into his arms, and he was so warm, and strong, and solid, and Nicky didn’t know how he’d ever let go. “You’re not going to lose me. I’m not going to disappear. I choose this, no matter what.”

Nicky buried his face into Erik’s shoulder, muffling his words. “I don’t even know why I feel like I have to do this. But I just keep thinking, you know, have those boys ever gotten to do that? Make a choice?” His throat was raw, thick with tears, and he hiccoughed when Erik’s hand tightened against his side.

Lips pressed against his temple. “You can do this. It’s not either-or, it’s not me or them. There’s room for all of us, you know? If family is who you choose, there’s no reason you can’t choose me _and_ them.”

“I don’t know how.” Nicky sat up and stared into Erik’s eyes, as warm and gentle as a summer sky. “I’m twenty years old, I barely know how to manage a checking account. Am I seriously going to go be some sort of—what, some kind of fake parent to fucking teenagers? Without you?”

Erik hummed, his mouth twitching in reluctant amusement. “Whatever you will end up being, love, it won’t be fake. You have the biggest heart of anyone I know. You couldn’t fake love if you tried.”

Love. He thought he had known what it was, long ago; when he had come here, desperate and lost and wanting. He could still remember the wonder that stole through him, taking his breath with it, when Erik had kissed him the first time. It had seemed like the end of the movie, like time had stopped, like there was nothing beyond that one point of contact.

He could laugh now, at the idea that love could be narrowed down to that one moment.

For that had just been the twist of the key in the lock. Once the door was open, there was so much more inside than he had ever realized. There was nothing sterile about love. It was enormous and messy and loud and quiet; it was soft and hard-edged; it was sunlight at dawn, showing the world in a new light, rosy and clear and honest. And it touched on everything he could see.

Nicky didn’t want to reach for his phone. He didn’t want to leave the tiny family he had fought for here for the blood ties he had left behind. But Erik’s hand was in his, fingers laced, strength and love and hope that could never die flowing between them. So he picked up his phone, and he pressed the contact, and he listened to it ring, and the names that were engraved in his heart for the sun’s light to find were not those of his parents.

_Erik. Aaron. Andrew._

At last, the line connected, and he took a deep breath.

“Hi, Mom? It’s me. I’m coming home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am aware that it was Andrew in the car with Tilda, but the presumption is that Maria, and therefore Nicky, believe it to be Aaron at the time of the accident.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into what must have been a very difficult time for Nicky! I've had this idea rattling around in my head since I read the books over 2 years ago, and I was glad to finally put it down on paper for this zine. And as always, comments are cherished even if I struggle to reply--I love hearing what you all have to say! You can hmu anytime [on Tumblr](http://fuzzballsheltiepants.tumblr.com)!


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